How many of you have had Total Knee surgery

I really need some feed back on anyone who has had knee replacement surgery. I have been totally disabled with this DD for at least 4 yrs now and have been on strong pain medicine for at least 6 yrs. Several surgeons has refused to help me, but now I have found a good surgeon that just done orthrascopic knee surgery and found out that it is even worse than he had saw in the MRI films. He told me that I will need this done within the yr. I know that this kind of surgery is the most painful to get thru the therapy afterward and he told me that it will take an extra 3 to 6 weeks to recover. I am really up tight about if I can get thru it. The pain now is terrible and will just get worse, but how do I know what the right answer is and how long to put this off. He told me that it must be done, but I must decide when. So if anyone can tell me how they handled this problem due to going thru it, I would really appreciate any help. This fibro never lets up on causing problems in everything in our everyday lives.
Thanks for listening and any help you can send my way. Sniffles

I too have painful knees. They have been telling me the only thing they can do is a total replacement. I worry about the surgery itself of course but the PT afterwards is worrysome. I have heard though that while the surgery area is sore the bone pain is gone that was there before.

I was kind of hoping you would hear that...maybe its wishful thinking.

I would hate to trade the bone pain for muscle and tendon pain unless it was short term.

I have lots of arthritus in that knee and it has caused the thigh bone to start grinding away against the lower bone. I have been told by several people that have had the surgery that all the joint pain disappears because it removes the arthritus and you have a whole new knee joint. Pain is due to muscles needing to be stretched and made stronger. The Dr. today gave me a pre-op booklet to read and it says that you need to do several weeks of exercises before the surgery to strenghten the leg muscles and that will help when you start the therapy after the surgery. If I decide to have the surgery before long, I will try to do as many as I can to ease any pain that I can avoid afterward.
Thanks for letting me know that I'm not alone dealing with this problem. Hope we hear from some that have had good results. sniffles

both knees were done within 3 months and he said if he had to do it again he would have had it done years ago.
He has severevRA and bone was grinding against bone. Alot of pain all the time.
he got RA when he was 16. worked up until 3 years ago when he had his first surgery.
Where are you from? Very good Dr. here in Johnstown PA.
Hope to hear from you.
Frosty

Frosty, thanks for telling me about how much help the surgery has been to your husband. I have heard lots of good reports from friends and a brother-in-law that had sugrery 2 yrs. ago. My former accountant had both knees replaced at the same time!!!!! He is 78 and when I was talking to him, he started jumping up and down to show me how good he feels now. He was 76 when he had it done. He told me that he doesn't have a single pain left in his knees. I told him to count his blessings.
I live in Indiana. It has taken 2 yrs to find a Dr. that will work with me. This surgeon works with difficult cases and has his own patent on the way he does knee surgery. He has gave lectures at surgeons conventions and is working with the orthopedic companys to improve the replacements. I found out about him thru a former co-worker that has fibro and had to have a knee replacement. She has lots of other health problems and is very heavy. She done very well and recommended him very highly. So now I just have to decide when to schedule it. Need to get up the nerve to just call and set the date. I'm hoping that afterwards I will be saying the same thing that your husband did about wishing I had done it sooner. Sniffles